PHP 8.5 Released: Pipe Operator, URI Extension and Clone With

PHP 8.5 shipped on 20 November 2025 with the |> pipe operator, a built-in URI extension, clone-with syntax and the #[\NoDiscard] attribute.

PHP 8.5.0 was released on 20 November 2025. Highlights from the official announcement:

Pipe operator (|>) – chain single-argument callables left to right instead of nesting calls:

$slug = $title
    |> trim(...)
    |> (fn($s) => str_replace(' ', '-', $s))
    |> strtolower(...);

URI extension – an always-available extension (Uri\Rfc3986\Uri, Uri\WhatWg\Url) to parse and modify URLs according to RFC 3986 and the WHATWG URL standard, a safer alternative to parse_url().
Clone With – clone($obj, ['prop' => $value]) makes the "with-er" pattern easy for readonly classes.
#[\NoDiscard] attribute – warns when an important return value is ignored.
Closures and first-class callables in constant expressions, e.g. in attribute arguments.
Persistent cURL share handles across requests.

The migration guide in the PHP manual lists the deprecations and backward-incompatible changes to check before upgrading.

Planning a jump from an older PHP version to 8.5? RescuePHP can audit your codebase and handle the upgrade step by step.